


Firsts

by dareyoutoread



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hiatus Prompt Fic, LJ 60 prompts in 60 days, prompt: War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dareyoutoread/pseuds/dareyoutoread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Blackout life is so far removed from pre-Blackout life that suddenly, everything feels like a first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firsts

 

The first time Miles kills a man, he kills two (in for a penny…). And yeah, it’s not like he hadn’t shot people before the world went to shit, but Bass sums it up in his shock: “This isn’t war, man. You can’t just go around wasting guys.”

Can’t he?

No one’s coming to stop him any more than they were coming to stop those two murderers, and the line between murder and vigilante justice may be blurry to Bass, but it’s pretty damn clear to Miles. People who kill defenseless people for their food and supplies – _bad_. People who shoot those killers before they can continue their murder spree – _good._

What Bass can’t see (and Miles tries hard to explain it to him as they pick up their rescued stranger) is that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and everybody’s still waiting around for somebody else to do something. 

If that’d been his family – and _shit_ , there’s that image of the tent again, but this time, it’s Rachel’s blonde hair matted with blood, and Miles stumbles with his shoulder under the stranger’s arm and nearly loses his breakfast all over the dirt – he’d sure as fuck have wanted somebody to put down the bastards who did it. What he’d done to those men had been a kindness compared to what any victim’s family would have done.

His stomach’s still roiling as he and Bass help the stranger over to a rock to sit down. Miles just drops into the dirt about twelve feet away, pulling his canteen from his pack and drinking a few sips while Bass hands his own canteen to the new guy. 

Fuck. He is going to lose his breakfast.

But then the new guy says, “Hello, I’m Jeremy. Thanks for saving my life,” and holds out a big, meaty hand, and the contrast between the man’s blood-covered face and his goofy smile and strangely formal greeting takes Miles’ mind off the images of Rachel, Ben, and the kids lying by a roadside and his stomach settles enough for him to reach out a hand in return.

“Hey. Miles Matheson and Bass Monroe. And you’re welcome.”

Jeremy engulfs his hand in giant fist and basically shakes Miles’ whole arm. Bass sighs and then gives in, reluctantly giving Jeremy his own hand to shake. It’s a peace offering to Miles that clearly says he doesn’t agree with Miles, but he’ll follow him anyway. 

Miles catches Bass’s eye and nods his thanks as Bass sorts through their supplies for something for Jeremy’s wounds. He tries to conjure up some guilt over killing those men, just to make Bass happy, but he just can’t. Not when that could have been – he swallows back the image of the orange tent  again, and instead gets up to help Bass make camp.

As he rolls out their bags and divvies out what little they have for dinner, Miles chews over the thought that the list of things he would never say to Bass is so short there’s only one thing on it: 

That maybe the fact Bass’s family was dead before this all started makes him the lucky one now.

And that’s a first that makes his stomach churn all over again.

…

The first time Miles rides a horse, he can’t imagine how _this_ was ever the main form of transportation on the planet. First off, he can’t seem to get his butt to synch up with the horse’s jostling, jarring gait, and he keeps having to stand in the stirrups just to avoid having his balls mashed to pulp against the unforgiving saddle leather. He’d done this once as a kid, sure, on some family friend’s farm, but that had been for “fun,” and he’d been nine and invincible (and, shit, _ow_ , probably a little less well-endowed). This is for war.

_War._

Is that really what they’re calling this, now? What had started out as his and Bass’s attempt to restore some goddamned order to a crazy world has turned into an endless parade of skirmishes and bloodbaths as they and their backyard-trained “militia” try to knock down every psychopath and despot scrambling to set themselves up their own cozy little military dictatorship.   

The horse lurches into a higher gear, and Miles loses a stirrup, feels himself start to list to one side, and actually has to grab at the saddle horn to pull his ass back into place. Jeremy’s on the other side of the corral fence, laughing his ass off (his turn is next, but he rode before the Blackout), and Bass is there, too, scowling and considerably more subdued (he’d had his turn before Miles and the horse had flat-out refused to listen to a single direction he’d given). If the eight horses they’ve managed to beg, borrow, and (not quite forcibly) requisition from the neighboring farms turn out all right, Jeremy and Hanes – a veterinarian they’d pressed into service three months ago as their field doctor – will start training their “cavalry” unit by the end of the week. It’d been Bass who’d insisted he and Miles had to (finally) learn to ride, because “that’s what officers always did.” Miles imagines he’s regretting it already.

Suddenly, some kind of magic happens, and his rhythm synchs up with the horse’s for the first time in twenty minutes.

And it’s like _flying._  

It’s been more than a year now since he’d last driven his Camaro, and this is the only thing that’s come close to approximating the feeling. In some ways, it’s better, because there’s an element of camaraderie, a synchronicity of purpose and movement that Miles has only felt before when back-to-back with Bass in the middle of a firefight.

For a second, he actually has to resist the urge to throw out his arms and holler.

As post-Blackout firsts go, it’s not half bad. 

…

The first time Miles holds a sword, it feels like part of his own arm. Swordplay comes like breathing, like instinct – something he’s always done but had somehow forgotten he’d known.

It’s funny, because he’d always hated those goddamn swords and sorcery video games, and even as kids, he and Bass had played with wooden _guns_ , not swords made from sticks (and now that he thinks about it, what the hell kind of kid plays with wooden _guns_ instead of swords? He and Bass have been setting their course for a long, long time now…). 

He tests the weight in his hand, and makes a few experimental _swishes_ , swinging from the wrist like he’d seen once in an old Errol Flynn movie. The blade sings in the air and their blacksmith, Jefferson, raises his eyebrows. 

“Thought you ‘and’t learnt any swordplay,” he challenges in his lilting Welsh accent.

“Haven’t,” Miles grunts back, still studying the way the light glints off the folded steel.

“Weell, far be it from me t’call the General a liar.” Jefferson shrugs and raises his own blade. “En guarde.”

From the first singing clang of metal off metal, Miles moves like a fencer. It’s half battle and half dance, and Jefferson shouts broad-voweled instructions at him as they move through a series of attacks and parries that Miles’ spices up with everything he already knows about hand-to-hand combat.

And he’d made fun of Bass for suggesting it, but the swords are actually a brilliant idea. This kind of work will get the men into shape physically _and_ mentally, and provide them with a skill set that others – whoop! Miles almost yelps as he misjudges a parry and barely keeps Jefferson’s blade from slicing a nice hole in his jacket. Task at hand, idiot.

And as soon as he’s fully present in the moment again – reacting, not thinking – the blade moves like an extension of his thoughts, and Jefferson actually starts working for his parries instead of moving through them like a bored tutor. 

When Miles accidentally chucks Jefferson across the chin with the hilt of his sword, Jeremy grins and shouts, “Hey, we should throw some brass knuckles on there, Punchy.” 

A second later, Jefferson steps back and holds up his hands to call a halt, then salutes Miles with a brief bow and a sweep of the sword. 

And of course, it’s the salute that brings it all home again. 

They’re only doing this in the first place because they’re in the middle of a goddamned war, and they’re running out of bullets. 

Miles ignores Jefferson’s impressed congratulations as he hands the sword off to Bass and lets him take the field. Still, there’s a strange pang of loss as the hilt leaves his fingers, and it comes with the disturbing thought that maybe, just maybe, he was _made_ for this.

After all, it’s the first time he’s been good at anything the first time around.


End file.
